Graduate Student Travel Awards are available to assist University of Oregon graduate students with travel fares to major national or international conferences so they may present papers or posters, or to serve as invited speakers. Students in the arts may receive funding to give invited performances or installations. These funds will be distributed directly to the student prior to conference travel in order to allow travel arrangements to be made as early and as economical as possible. There will be a minimum of four awards given per year, one per application period.

Eligibility:

Each student must be confirmed as a presenter before funds are requested, and each student must be in a master’s or doctoral degree program and enrolled in courses at the time of travel. (If the conference is in summer and the student is not enrolled, then he/she must have been enrolled in spring and confirm in writing his/her plans to register for fall classes in order to be eligible.)

Funds may be used for airfare, fares supporting alternative modes of transportation (e.g., mileage, taxis), registration, hotels, food or other travel expenses.

Individual awards are limited to one every other year.

Priority will be given to graduate students who do not have other significant funding available for the travel and/or who have not received GSA travel funding in the past.

Applicants must be GSA members. Membership is free and open to any member of the UO community: Membership Link

Applications:

Applications must be received by the Graduate Student Association prior to travel and by the listed Application Deadlines, no awards will be given retroactively. Requests are considered up to a maximum of $300.

All travel award requests should be emailed to the Graduate Student Association at: gsa@uoregon.edu. The subject line of the email should follow this file name convention: GradTravel_deadline month and year_grad major_student’s last name (e.g. GradTravel_Feb2013_Physics_Smith).

Each request must be on a typed Travel Request Form along with evidence that the student’s research has been accepted for presentation and by an abstract of the research to be presented. Also, include information on the prominence of the conference in the discipline and the selectivity of conference participation.

Travel support provided by other parties (departments or conference scholarships) must be listed on the Travel Award Request form.

Optional: Provide a brief statement of financial need

Please send all components as one PDF document.

Application Deadlines:

January 1 for travel between February 1 and May 31

April 1 for travel between May 1 and July 31

June 1 for travel between July 1 and October 31

October 1 for travel between November 1 and January 31

Selection: The Graduate Student Association will select awardees based on:

availability of funding

completeness of the application

the student’s stage in the degree program

strength of the student’s statement of the reason for attending

strength of the student’s CV

stature of the conference and importance to career

Awards:Awards will be announced three weeks after the application deadlines. The funds will then be immediately distributed to the student awardee.

Reporting
Within a month of returning from the conference the student should send a one page report to the Graduate Student Association that includes the student’s name, major, degree sought, adviser’s name, the conference attended, the dates and location of the conference, the presentation title, and a description of the significant outcomes of the meeting for the student. The report should be emailed to gsa@uoregon.edu. These statements will be posted on the GSA webpage to catalog reward recipients. Pictures of the student presenter from the conference are welcome but not required.